The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of Angels in America

The oral history of Angels in America, as told by the artists who created it and the audiences forever changed by it--a moving account of the AIDS era, essential queer history, and pure theater magic (NPR).

A STONEWALL BOOK AWARDS HONOR BOOK

When Tony Kushner's Angels in America hit Broadway in 1993, it won the Pulitzer Prize, swept the Tonys, launched a score of major careers, and changed the way gay lives were represented in popular culture. Mike Nichols's 2003 HBO adaptation starring Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, and Mary-Louise Parker was itself a tour de force, winning Golden Globes and eleven Emmys, and introducing the play to an even wider public. This generation-defining classic continues to shock, move, and inspire viewers worldwide.

Now, on the 25th anniversary of that Broadway premiere, Isaac Butler and Dan Kois offer the definitive account of Angels in America in the most fitting way possible: through oral history, the vibrant conversation and debate of actors (including Streep, Parker, Nathan Lane, and Jeffrey Wright), directors, producers, crew, and Kushner himself. Their intimate storytelling reveals the on- and offstage turmoil of the play's birth--a hard-won miracle beset by artistic roadblocks, technical disasters, and disputes both legal and creative. And historians and critics help to situate the play in the arc of American culture, from the staunch activism of the AIDS crisis through civil rights triumphs to our current era, whose politics are a dark echo of the Reagan '80s.

Expanded from a popular Slate cover story and built from nearly 250 interviews, The World Only Spins Forward is both a rollicking theater saga and an uplifting testament to one of the great works of American art of the past century, from its gritty San Francisco premiere to its starry, much-anticipated Broadway revival in 2018.

Author: Isaac Butler, Dan Kois
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 01/07/2020
Pages: 464
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.10w x 1.20d
ISBN: 9781635572988

About the Author

Isaac Butler's writing has appeared in New York Magazine, Slate, the Guardian, and other publications. His theater directing work has been presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Public Theater, New York's Town Hall, and elsewhere.

Dan Kois is an editor and writer for Slate, where he launched the Slate Book Review, and a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. He is a frequent guest on Slate's Culture Gabfest.


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